ISSN-1079-7832 A Publication of the

Longevity Through Technology Volume 48 - Number 01

www.immortalistsociety.org www.cryonics.org www.americancryonics.org Who will be there for YOU?

Don’t wait to make your plans. Your life may depend on it.

Suspended Animation fields teams of specially trained cardio-thoracic surgeons, cardiac perfusionists and other medical professionals with state-of-the-art equipment to provide stabilization care for Institute members in the continental U.S. members can contract with for comprehensive standby, stabilization and transport services using life insurance or other payment options.

Speak to a nurse today about how to sign up. Call 1-949-482-2150

or email [email protected] MKMCAD160206 216

605.83A SuspendAnim_Ad_1115.indd 1 11/12/15 4:42 PM Why should You join the Cryonics Institute? The Cryonics Institute is the world’s leading non-profit cryonics organization bringing state of the art cryonic suspensions to the public at the most affordable price. CI was founded by the “father of cryonics,” Robert C.W. Ettinger in 1976 as a means to preserve life at liquid nitrogen temperatures. It is hoped that as the future unveils newer and more sophisticated medical nanotechnology, people preserved by CI may be restored to youth and health.

1) Cryonic Preservation 7) Funding Programs Membership qualifies you to arrange and fund a vitrification with CI can be funded through approved (anti-crystallization) perfusion and cooling upon legal death, life insurance policies issued in the USA or other countries. followed by long-term storage in liquid nitrogen. Instead of Prepayment and other options for funding are also available to certain death, you and your loved ones could have a chance at CI members. rejuvenated, healthy physical revival. 8) Cutting-Edge Cryonics Information 2) Affordable Cryopreservation Members currently receive free access to Long Life Magazine The Cryonics Institute (CI) offers full-body cryopreservation for as online or an optional paid print subscription, as well as access to little as $28,000. our exclusive members-only email discussion forum. 3) Affordable Membership 9) Additional Preservation Services Become a Lifetime Member for a one-time payment of only CI offers a sampling kit, shipping and long-term liquid nitrogen $1,250, with no dues to pay. Or join as a Yearly Member with a storage of tissues and DNA from members, their families or pets $75 inititation fee and dues of just $120 per year, payable by for just $98. check, credit card or PayPal. 10) Support Education and Research 4) Lower Prices for Spouses and Children Membership fees help CI, among other things, to fund The cost of a Lifetime Membership for a spouse of a Lifetime important cryonics research and public outreach, education and Member is half-price and minor children of a Lifetime Member information programs to advance the science of cryonics. receive membership free of charge until the child turns 18 years of age. 11) Member Ownership and Control CI Members are the ultimate authority in the organization and 5) Quality of Treatment own all CI assets. They elect the Board of Directors, from whom CI employed a Ph.D level cryobiologist to develop CI-VM-1, CI’s are chosen our officers. CI members also can change the Bylaws vitrification mixture which can help prevent crystalline formation of the organization (except for corporate purposes). at cryogenic temperatures. The choice is clear: Irreversible physical death, dissolution and 6) Locally-Trained Funeral Directors decay, or the possibility of a vibrant and joyful renewed life. CI’s use of Locally-Trained Funeral Directors means that our Don’t you want that chance for yourself, your spouse, parents members can get knowledgeable, licensed care. Or members and children? can arrange for professional cryonics standby and transport by subcontracting with Suspended Animation, Inc. To get started, contact us at: (586) 791-5961 • email: [email protected] Visit us online at www.cryonics.org Long Life MAGAZINE A publication of the Immortalist Society

Organization News

04 Cryonics Checklist Planning for your suspension

06 CI Executive Report - Dennis Kowalski

07 Joe Kowalsky Spreads the Word Feature stories page 10 10 A Young Voice in Cryonics - Ilir Dema

11 Longecity An Online Forum for Cryonicists

12 CI Statistics

13 Cryonics Groups List

14 Economies of Scale, First Response, and Funding Reanimation: Their importance to CI and to ACS - Jim Yount

17 CI Hires New Employee Meet Hilary McCauley page 20 page 17 18 Caveat “Reador” aka “Sometimes we ain’t perfect”

19 Teens and Twenties

20 Brain Preservation Prize What it means for cryonics - analysis by Aschwin DeWolf

23 ’s Legacy: Leonardo Would Have Been a Cryonicist

34 Final Thoughts: “Dr Bliss & Mr Garfield’ - York Porter page 07

ONLINE PDF HYPERLINK COMPATIBILTY Since different browser configurations handle pdf links differently, if you have trouble opening any hyperlink(s) in the magazine, try these steps: 1. “Copy and paste”or manually type the hyperlink or email address into your browser or your email application’s address field. 2. Download the pdf file to your desktop. Open downloaded file in Adobe Reader or your preferred PDF viewer. 3. Change PDF viewing settings / extensions on your browser (*advanced users only*) 4. Try a different browser (especially if you’re using Internet Explorer.) We recommend Google Chrome. You’ve signed up for Cryonics Now what should you do? Welcome Aboard! You have taken the first critical step in preparing Long Life for the future and possibly ensuring your own survival. Now what A quarterly publication of the should you do? People often ask “What can I do to make sure I Immortalist Society have an optimal suspension?” Here’s a checklist of important steps 24355 Sorrentino Ct. Clinton Township MI 48035-3239 to consider. President: York W. Porter Vice-President: Debbie Fleming Secretary: Royse Brown • Treasurer: Rich Medalie Volume 48 Number 1  Become a fully funded member through life insurance or First Quarter, 2016 easy pre-payments Editorial Staff Some members use term life and invest or pay off the difference at regular intervals. Some use whole life or Executive Editor: York W. Porter [email protected] just prepay the costs outright. You have to decide what Managing Editor: Douglas Golner [email protected] is best for you, but it is best to act sooner rather then later as insurance prices tend to rise as you get older and Assistant Editor: Joe Kowalsky [email protected] some people become uninsurable because of unforeseen Contributing Editors health issues. You may even consider making CI the owner of your life insurance policy. Dennis Kowalski [email protected]  Keep CI informed on a regular basis about your health John de Rivaz [email protected] status or address changes. Make sure your CI paperwork James Yount [email protected] and funding are always up to date. CI cannot help you if Copyright 2015 by The Immortalist Society all rights reserved we do not know you need help.  Keep your family and friends up to date on your wishes to be cryopreserved. Being reclusive about cryonics can be Editors Emeriti: costly and cause catastrophic results. Mae Ettinger, John Bull  Keep your doctor, lawyer, and funeral director up to date on your wishes to be cryopreserved. The right approach to the right professionals can be an asset.  Prepare and execute a Living Will and Power of Attorney PRINT EDITION SUBSCRIPTION PRICES : Single Subscriptions delivered by mail in the USA $35 per year. for Health Care that reflects your cryonics-related wishes. Single Subscriptions delivered by mail elsewhere $40 per year. Make sure that CI is updated at regular intervals as well. Please make your payment to the Immortalist Society. The  Consider joining or forming a local standby group to mailing address is 24355 Sorrentino Court, Clinton Township, support your cryonics wishes. This may be one of the Michigan 40835. For PayPal payments, please use the PayPal most important decisions you can make after you are fully website and the payee address of [email protected]. If you wish to pay with VISA, Mastercard, or American Express without funded. As they say-”Failing to plan is planning to fail”. using PayPal, please phone 586-791-5961 and have your credit  Always wear your cryonics bracelet or necklace identifying card information handy. your wishes should you become incapacitated. Keep a wallet card as well. If aren’t around people who support DISCLAIMER: The content in Long Life magazine represents the your wishes and you can’t speak for yourself a medical viewpoints of the individual writers and not necessarily those of the Long Life magazine staff or of the Immortalist Society that bracelet can help save you. publishes the magazine. Readers should always check with the  Get involved! If you can, donate time and money. Cryonics appropriate professional individuals in whatever area the article is not a turnkey operation. Pay attention and look for content is about. Readers should always use their own informed further tips and advice to make both your personal judgment about what the best decision is and/or the best course arrangements and cryonics as a whole a success. of action they should make or take. While the editorial staff attempts to ensure that articles contain accurate statements of fact, it cannot guarantee this. Further, an article’s grammar and punctuation are checked but are sometimes left “as is” to allow an individual writer’s full freedom of expression, whatever the rules on proper grammar may be. CI Executive Report Dennis Kowalski - President, Cryonics Institute

toxicity. Our hopes are to use what we learn to directly improve our patient perfusions here at CI, giving our members the latest and best technology coming from the community. If you are interested in donating to cryonics research you can either give now directly to CI at cryonics.org/donate, which frees up operational expenses to invest in more research, or you can specify that you would like your money to go directly to research. We have full funding for our 2015 and 2016 research projects, but we are always taking donations for 2017 and beyond. Money invested helps CI to bring the best service to you and your families when you truly need it most.

Great job and thanks to director Stephan Beauregard who has helped to push our Facebook membership up past the 10,000 mark. Kudos and thanks to member Shannon Blevins who has also helped Hello everyone - there are a lot of exciting new things to report our outreach efforts by growing CI’s Twitter account to over 900 already this year at the Cryonics Institute. First, recognizing our followers. The new CI newsletter has reached past 1,400 subscribers increased growth and subsequent workload, we decided it was time and continues growing. to add some depth at the CI Facility in terms of full-time staff. I am very happy to welcome Hillary McCauley as our newest employee. Reaching out to people with these social media venues has proved As of December of 2015, Hillary was hired as a Perfusion Specialist to be a very useful tool in our efforts to spread positive news about and Office Administrator. We have worked with Hillary on several cryonics and the Cryonics Institute. If you haven’t joined our social past occasions, including the gold standard cryoperfusion of Aaron media channels, please take some time to do so by following the Winborn. She is both experienced and licensed to surgically access links below. and perform patient perfusions. We’re confident Hillary will be a hardworking, intelligent and friendly asset to CI and our members. So if you see her at CI or speak with her on the phone be sure to say hello and welcome her aboard!

Hillary has been aggressively going through member files and updating paperwork such as contract funding and other important information, so don’t be surprised if you see her name in emails as I have received a few emails from concerned CI members who well. If you want to help yourself and Hillary, please send in your asked me to mention and/or make a correction to an older reprint proof of contract funding on an annual basis. of a recently published article entitled “The Case for Whole body Cryopreservations” by Michael B. O’Neal, Ph.D. and Aschwin de Wolf. We have received some generous donations from David and Connie Ettinger to replace our entire roof and start some exciting While the article as titled makes a strong case for whole body new research. Thank you both for your level of commitment. There cryopreservations, it also says that “the default procedure at the are too many other generous donors to mention here, but, rest Cryonics Institute is to perform cryoprotective perfusion with a assured, you all are making a noticeable difference and you have vitrification agent for the upper body and give the rest of the body a the gratitude of everyone in the organization. straight freeze”. This has not been the case for several years and our website has been corrected to reflect the current standard, which We are launching a new Research Initiative focusing on the latest is to perfuse the head and body at virtually the same time. This vitrification procedures in organ preservation. Recent discoveries is important to clarify and could result in the implication that CI’s have shown dramatically improved tissue viability and reduced whole body cryopreservations are not being done to the highest

6 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org current standard. I can attest that not only are our cryopreservations As always, I encourage members to take an active role in volunteering performed to the highest standards, but that they are also some of for one of the many initiatives and projects we have on our “to do” the most affordable in the industry. We take great pride in being list. If you have special skills in programming, public relations, web able to delivery this type of quality to our members. High standards development, science or just a desire to help out, please sign up at and affordability translates potentially into more lives saved. That’s our Volunteer Page. This is a new feature on the web site, so watch not a trivial point. for updates on volunteer projects and opportunities online and in future issues of the CI Newsletter. Many people are seeing and talking about the positive changes at CI and it is bringing in more donations and noticeable growth We need your help to make CI stronger and especially for members in our membership. I am happy to announce that last year we hit to pre-plan their suspension arrangements so that we all have the record membership and the trend is increasing. Those numbers still best possible chance at extended life. Remember, we are all part seem small when you think of all the people of the world who are of a cooperative organization, and you have the opportunity and dying needlessly, but it is empowering to see us heading in the right responsibility to improve your own suspension through the efforts direction. you put forth in pre-planning. We have provided a suspension checklist for you to follow and resources to help you prepare, so I In short, we continue to improve our facility, our operation, and our urge you to take advantage of what we have available and start your staffing levels have increased. We have new research initiatives and suspension planning now. both interest and membership are growing at a faster pace. I am very excited and happy about what I see. Make the future yours!

Joe Kowalsky Continues to Spread the Word!

Joe Kowalsky, member of the Board of Directors of the Cryonics Insti- Joseph Kowalsky, J.D. AIF® tute, head of the Immortalist Society’s Cryoprize efforts, and long time A Director and CIO of the Cryonics Institute cryonics advocate, recently spoke on behalf of cryonics as indicated be- Greetings friends! low. Joe continues to “spread the word” whenever and wherever he can about the world changing concept of cryonics. Readers should note that I had the honor of being asked to speak at the 2b Ahead Futurist there may be some slight editing of Joe’s talk in the text given below and conference in Wolfsburg Germany in June, 2015 before several hun- dred business people and CEOs, and more recently at the Church of it may vary, slightly, from the presented (spoken) version. Please note the Perpetual Life in Hollywood, Florida at the end of January, 2016. clickable links in the document which may, for those who are reading the “print version” of Long Life, be simply typed into the “address bar” of The Church of Perpetual Life is a science based church. It is called a most web browsers where one can enjoy Joe’s excellent speaking style church because it is a place of faith – in this case faith that science and skills for one’s self. will overcome aging and death.

7 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org I believe that an important first step in achieving viable cryonic sus- larger and more complex. I should not be faster than my computer - pension and revival is the successful freezing and revival of individ- which is happening more as more is stored in the cloud. ual organs – specifically for organ transplant purposes. And this is a laudable and necessary effort in its own right! And security remains a problem. We transmit so much over the in- is hugely important AND well accepted by society at large. I hope ternet that computer breaches have become common, but it is still you enjoy the talk, maybe learn something that you find edifying, nice to have my own information on my own machine with my own and share it with as many people as you can!!! firewall if for no other reason than that it may not be on a hackers radar screen. The link to my talk in Florida is: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=OXUfKYHF220 Loud proponents argue that they have far more money and reason to spend it protecting against hackers. True. But then they are fewer (The link to the talk I gave in Germany is: http://www.2bahead. targets as I mentioned and . . . it presumes that the cloud-minders com/nc/de/tv/rede/video/how-will-being-human-change-when- don’t steal our information for their own use or to sell to others. Of humans-can-change-themselves-and-what-we-can-do-today-to- course with artificial intelligence– which is on the horizon -- and hu- bring-this/?PHPSESSID=657fff25833573772565e5cd50a8dea6; man computer integration all of this could soon change – but in the mean time it remains worth considering The other talks at the futurist conference are at: http://www.2bahead. com/nc/de/tv/event/zukunftskongress-2015/) I bring this up, well, because I do not like the cloud. I think it has seri- ous flaws and potential danger.

Transcript: And because as we look to the future, we need to also look to the Yes, I am a recovering lawyer! past to ensure that we do not repeat mistakes which we had already made and to which we had perhaps even found solutions with more Thank you, Neal VanDeRee. Thank you for welcoming me into your powerful technology home, your hearts, and your family

In June, I spoke at the 2b Ahead Futurist Conference in Wolfsburg, Germany. The talk prior to mine was by Dr. Jose Cordeiro of Singular- ity University, who spoke about amazing developments in technol- ogy. He began by reminding us of the great computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s. We used punch cards that held a whopping 1000 bytes -- 1 k -- of information. Then we stepped up to floppy disks – which also held 1 k of information. The advantage over the punch card was not the quantity of information stored, but that they could be changed, erased, reused. 30 years ago, then, you had – as he said in German – Ka and another Ein Ka which, added together, is Cryonics Institute - www.cryonics.org ka-ka. He went on to say that 30 years from now the multi-gigabyte flash drives that we use today will be considered ka-ka As you have heard, my name is Joseph Kowalsky. I am on the Board of Directors of the Cryonics Institute. Cryonics is the freezing of human In the 1970s, I was involved with Cordero’s computers when we bodies to preserve them at the state they were in when death oc- moved from mainframes and dumb terminals – similar to today´s curred, until medical technology may revive and repair them. An am- cloud--to PCs for a few very good reasons: bulance to the future. It is amazing and wonderful to me that most, if not all of, you already know this! What a change from not so long ago Speed - you don’t need to reach across space to get information from And I don’t mean just in this forum, where you might expect to have a shared server a larger number of people familiar with cryonics. I mean everywhere. Security- you store your stuff on your computer. The Cryonics Institute was founded in 1976 by Robert Ettinger “the Today, speeds are so much faster for both computer processing and father of Cryonics” based on the idea that we are doing a public ser- transmission that people think it has become insignificant. It hasn’t. vice as well as working on our own behalves. It is a non-profit cor- Especially as the information stored and programs used become poration.

8 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org The cost of whole body freezing - and no, we do not freeze just heads ability to adapt to change.” Humans are good at that. We are resil- - is $28,000 - not much more than an expensive funeral. We want to ient and malleable. What is interesting and what he did not mention be that “ambulance to the future” for as many people as we are able there is that for millennia – since we came up with tools and fire – we to. We often hear that cryonics is some kind of money-making scam. have been making some of the changes to which we have to adapt. Well, if it is, we are doing it the wrong way, since most of us involved And that is what we are talking about today. are volunteers and not only don’t make a penny off of this but usu- We can’t control everything – and I would not want to – but we can ally put in not just time but also our own money to a greater or lesser control some things. A caveat to Dr Hawking’s statement is that an extent important part of creating a future as we want it to be is to make In fact, all of us now involved with the organization are volunteers people see it as “normal”. with the exception of one full time paid employee and one part time My niece got married a few years ago and I said the following to her employee. (Editor’s Note: This has changed since Joe’s talk. See the and her new husband (and those gathered at the wedding). One day, article on Hillary McCauley in this issue). However, we have a large I said to my new nephew, you will walk in and my niece will be in the endowment - and no debt - to add to our employment rolls if neces- living room reading on a chair that is upside down. You will say to sary her, “What are you doing? Why is the chair upside down?” And she The difficulties of suspended animation via cryonics used to relate will say “It’s Wednesday” and when you continue to look blankly at mostly to crystallization which occurs when water freezes. If you her she will continue: “This is normal, everybody reads on an upside have ever seen a magnified snow flake you know that its beauty down chair on Wednesday, my family always did it this way.” And I comes from the myriad points that stick out from the flake. But these said to my niece, one day you will walk in and your beloved will be points are sharp. As water freezes in the body, these crystals with sitting on the kitchen table eating spoonful after spoonful of butter sharp points form and often pierce the cell membranes. Since the while playing a banjo. And you will say to him, “What are you doing?” body is over 70% water that was a big issue. And it is why many sci- And he will say, “I had the hiccoughs.” And as you stare at him blankly, entists said that – at least in the early days – trying to revive cryopre- he will continue, “This is a surefire cure to hiccoughs, its normal, ev- erybody does it, my family always did this!” served bodies would be like trying to revive hamburger.

Those who are married or have lived with someone for a while know We began removing the blood, and replacing it with a glycerol “anti- exactly what I am talking about. The rest of you . . . you will have freeze”. This helped somewhat. With further research, we developed to take our word for it. “Normal”, to a large extent, is what we grew a fluid that allowed vitrification. Vitrification skips the crystalliza- up with. We find all sorts of reasons and rationalizations for why it is tion process of freezing and moves straight from liquid to a glassy right or better than other ways. But often, the feeling of rightness is solid frozen state. We can now preserve the cell structure quite well there deep inside of us. And our smart and sneaky brains come up throughout the brain and body. Some difficulties remain. There is oc- with reasons to justify it. casional small cracking. But the bigger problem is that the current vitrification solution is toxic. So when, if we do revive a patient, and Or you can look at different customs in different societies and what I will talk later about why I believe we will be able to do this, when they think is absolutely normal and which we think is silly or crazy. we do revive a patient, we will have to find a way to quickly remove While I hope we respect many different ways of life, we don’t do them virtually all of the vitrification solution before it poisons the body. even though these people will tell you that it is important or neces- Work continues on this as well as on developing a non-toxic vitrifica- sary. Many thought [think?] of those of us involved with cryonics as tion solution. At the same time, we are looking to future science to arrogant, delving into the territory of God. I see it as the opposite. We develop damage repair methods. are modestly saying that we do not know when death occurs.

I have been involved with cryonics since I was 13 years old. The typi- It is 1890, you are walking down the street and someone drops on cal paradigm -- birth, school, marriage, children, move to Florida, die the street with a heart attack. A doctor pronounces him dead. You – never made sense to me. There is so much out there to see, to learn, run up with a defibrillator, and then do CPR – and you are arrested to do, to be . . . and so little time. When I first became involved, most for desecrating a dead body. They see you sending an electric shock did not know what cryonics was. And of those that did, most thought through a dead body and making it jump, kissing a dead man, and it crazy. Today most think it a reasonable possibility . . . though not for banging on his chest. Its macabre! them! Well, it is a step forward. Today we know that the person may not be dead yet. (Any Monty I recently read a quote from Dr. Stephen Hawking, “Intelligence is the Python fans here?) Cryonics says that today we are equally ignorant. CONTINUES Page 25

9 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org A young voice in cryonics research By Ilir Dema

A couple of years ago I received an email sent to [email protected] In the theoretical part of his thesis, Aleix walks the reader through a and forwarded to my personal email from a student of first bacca- concise, but extremely accurate description of cryonics, historical de- laureate in Barcelona. Scratching my head and thinking whether the velopments, current status of cryonics facilities worldwide, and what email was genuine or spam, I finally decided to open it. It was one my is even more important, to the contemporary application of cryonics best decisions. and related technologies into embryo preservation and cancer re- search and treatment. Well, I better introduce myself: Ilir Dema, mathematician, computer scientist, educator, CI long-time member, Cryonics Society of Canada Under the direction his adviser, Professor Ana Araceli Guarinos Maha- long-time member and director, Toronto Local Group volunteer; in mud, in collaboration with Dr. Nerea Gallastegui, he designed a series other words, hardcore cryonicist. Always a contributor and a firm be- of experiments to observe the response of different organisms and liever in the power of science to shape the future of humanity. organs (the bacteria E.coli and chicken liver) and molecules (protease) under different temperatures and using different . So, back to that day, the sender, Aleix Pujadas Rello, was looking for- ward to doing a school research project in cryonics. The intuition of In his E.Coli experiment, Aleix did freeze four samples from the same the teacher whispered in my ear that this student was very serious batch at different temperatures (4C , -20C , -80 C, and -196C ) using about it. The passage of time proved that he was more serious than I three different cryprotectants: glycerol, DMSO, and sucrose. A fifth could have ever thought in my wildest imagination. sample was maintained as a control group. Best results (in terms of survival of organisms after thawing) were achieved at temperatures Aleix insisted on the quality of the experimental part of his research -80C and -196C, using DMSO at a concentration of 30% as cryopro- work, the hallmark of a true scientist. In this respect, he took a step tectant. that few people have had the nerve to go through in cryonics. This puts him in the line of the numerous experimentalists that have made The results of the E.Coli experiment contrast with poor results ob- groundbreaking contributions in the field. tained at low temperatures with chicken liver. The most likely reason

10 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org for this discrepancy is believed to be the Aleix has confirmed the best practices used lack of perfusion in the chicken liver experi- in modern cryonics are basically sound. He ments. has also introduced himself as a powerful future voice in modern cryonics research. Aleix’s third experiment with protein cryo- I am proud that I could modestly support preservation, confirms that the best preser- his work by giving an interview for his pa- vation (in terms of the smallest amount of protein denaturation) was achieved again per and also giving some modest advice on using DMSO at liquid nitrogen temperature. various online information resources for his research. By confirming the advantages of cryopreser- DMSO samples at different concentrations and vation at liquid nitrogen temperatures, and Right now Aleix studies chemistry at the different temperatures. also bringing continued attention to the University of Barcelona. He can be reached negative effect of the lack of perfusion, at [email protected].

LONGECITY Alvin Steinberg

Alvin Steinberg, a member of the LongeCity is a membership organization, from both cryonics organizations, participate Cryonics Institute, sent us this which does advocacy and research for unlim- in the forum. About 15,000 participants use brief but informative article about ited life spans. It has a forum on its website, the forum. an organization called LongeCity. www.longecity.org, which allows its users, According to Alvin, it is an organi- both members and non-members, to express It is not necessary to join LongeCity in order zation that is interested in an un- their opinions and give suggestions. It is po- to participate in the forum. For those will- limited life span and which has, tentially possible for forum participants to ing to join, the general membership fee is at present, around 30,000 on-line start groups to accomplish their objectives. $50.00 a year. Students and seniors can join followers. LongeCity will sometimes contribute a small for $25.00 a year. The Life Time membership amount of money to help in this endeavor. Alvin noted in his e-mail to us: fee is $500.00. “LongeCity is not affiliated with You should make up an on line name to use any other organization. We help One of the headings on the sign in page is, the forum. I use my first name, alvin. Some support aging research and dis- make up names, including weird ones. “Media”. That consists of 31 Podcasts about cuss longevity matters on line. . The number of Podcasts in- It is our hope that we will set up To contact management click, “Contact”. You creases monthly. Many of the participants an Internet radio station to give can then ask a question of management. You are major scientists. There is also a film about news stressing medical research, must log in for this service. especially longevity research.” life extension. Viewers of the forum often send replies to your written ideas. The forum covers the In order to enter LongeCity simply type entire country and some participants live Longecity in the search bar and you are in. To outside the United States. Some cryonacists, participate in the Forum it is best to sign in.

11 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org Cryonics Institute Membership Statistics:

As of April 2016, the Cryonics Institute has 1,273 members, up 34 from our last report. Of the 1,273 Members, 188 have arrangements for Suspended Animation Standby and Transport.

There are 137 human patients and 120 pet patients in cryopreservation at CI’s Michigan facility.

CI continues to be an industry leader in terms of both membership and practical affordability for all.

CI MEMBERSHIP Members ...... 1,273 Pets...... 120 TOTAL SA ...... 188 DNA/Tissue...... 226 IncreaseNew Members in Membership New Country since last issue Patients ...... 137 1,410

Norway-7 Sweden-5 Denmark-1 Lithuania-1 Russia-1 Netherlands-12 Canada-69 Poland-8 UK-92 Poland-8 Scotland- 1 Czech Republic-2 Ireland-2Ireland-2 Austria-3 British Isles-2 Hungary-1 Belgium-10 Romania-2 Japan-4 United States-887 Luxembourg - 1 Switzerland-3 China-2 Germany-37 Turkey-1 Italy-7 Greece-13 France-8 Italy-7 Croatia-1 Portugal-4 Malta-1 Portugal-4 Hong Kong-1 Aruba-2 Mexico-1 Spain-13 Thailand-1 IndiaIndia -- 22 Singapore-2 Costa Rica-2 Singapore-2 Ghana - 2 Brazil-2 New Caledonia-1

Australia-52

Argentina-1

APRIL 2016 New Zealand-1

12 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org Worldwide Cryonics Groups

AUSTRALIA: The Cryonics Association of Can help Cryonics Institute Members who need +31-20-646-0606 or +31-70-345-4810 Australasia offers support for Australians, or resi- help for the transport & hospital explication about the cryonics procedure to the Dr and authority in dents of other nearby countries seeking informa- NORWAY : Can help Cryonics Institute Mem- Toulouse Area. Contact : Gregory Gossellin de Bé- tion about cryonics. [email protected]. bers who need help for the transport & hospital Their Public Relations Officer is Philip Rhoades. nicourt / Email : [email protected] Phone : explication about the cryonics procedure to the [email protected] GPO Box 3411, Sydney, NSW 09.52.05.40.15 2001 Australia. Phone: +6128001 6204 (office) or Dr, funeral home and authority at Sandvika. Con- +61 2 99226979 (home.) GERMANY: There are a number of cryoni- tacts : Gunnar Hammersmark Sandvika Begegrav- cists in Germany. Their homepage is: www.bio- elsesbyraa / Phones : 011-47-2279-7736 BELGIUM: Cryonics Belgium is an organisa- stase.de (English version in preparation.) if there tion that exists to inform interested parties and, if are further questions, contact Prof. Klaus Sames: PORTUGAL: Nuno & Diogo Martins with Rui desired, can assist with handling the paperwork [email protected]. Freitas have formed a group to aid Alcor members for a cryonic suspension. The website can be found in Portugal. Contact: [email protected] or at www.cryonicsbelgium.com. To get in touch, GREECE: Greek Cryonics Support Group. visit www.cryonics.com.pt/ please send an email to info@cryonicsbelgium. Sotiris Dedeloudis is the Administrator. Find them com. at: http://www.cryonics.gr/ RUSSIA: KrioRus is a Russian cryonics organi- BHUTAN: Can help Cryonics Institute Mem- INDIA: Can help Cryonics Institute Members zation operating in Russia, CIS and Eastern Europe bers who need help for the transport & hospital who need help for the transport & hospital ex- that exists to help arrange cryopreservation and explanation about the cryonics procedure to plication about the cryonics procedure to the Dr longterm suspension locally, or with CI or Alcor. the Dr and authorities in Thimphou & Paro. Con- and authority in Bangalore & Vellore Area. Con- Please contact @mail.ru or daoila.medve- tacts : Jamyang Palden & Tenzin Rabgay / Emails tacts : Br Sankeerth & Bioster Vignesh / Email : [email protected] for additional information or visit : [email protected] or [email protected] [email protected] Phones : Bioster / http://www.kriorus,ru. Phone: 79057680457 Phones : Jamyang / 975-2-32-66-50 & Tenzin / 975- 918148049058 & Br Sankeerth / 917795115939 2-77-21-01-87 SPAIN: Giulio Prisco is Secretary of the Spanish ITALY: The Italian Cryonics Group (inside the CANADA: This is a very active group that Life Extension Research Group (LIFEXT Research Cryonics Society. Website is http://www.crionica. participated in Toronto’s first cryopreservation. Group)) www.lifext.org and relative forum: forum. org.sec. He lives in Madrid and he’s a life member President, Christine Gaspar; Vice President, Gary lifext.org. The founder is Bruno Lenzi, contact him of CI and is willing to serve as a contact point for Tripp. Visit them at: http://www.cryocdn.org/. at [email protected] or Giovanni Ranzo at: Europeans. He can be contacted at: cell phone There is a subgroup called the Toronto Local [email protected] (34)610 536144 or [email protected] Group. Meeting dates and other conversations are held via the Yahoo group. This is a closed group. To JAPAN: Hikaru Midorikawa is President Japan join write: [email protected] * SWITZERLAND (new entry): Cryonics Association. Formed in 1998, our goals www.CryonicsSwitzerland.com or www.ria.edu/cs are to disseminate cryonics information in Japan, QUEBEC: Contact: Stephan Beauregard, to provide cryonics services in Japan, and even- C.I. Volunteer & Official Administrator of the tually, to allow cryonics to take root in the Japa- UNITED KINGDOM: Cryonics UK is a Cryonics Institute Facebook Page. nese society. Contact [email protected] or nonprofit UK based standby group. http://www. http://www.cryonics.jp/ index.html cryonicsuk.org/ Cryonics UK can be contacted via For more information about Cryonics in French & English: [email protected] the following people: Tim Gibson: phone: 07905 NEPAL: Can help Cryonics Institute Members 371495, email: [email protected]. Vic- who need help for the transport & hospital ex- toria Stevens: phone: 01287 669201, email: vic- DENMARK: A Danish support group planation about the cryonics procedure to the Dr [email protected]. Graham Hipkiss: phone: is online. Contact them at: david.stodolsky@ and authorities in Kathmandu. Contact : Suresh K. socialinformatics.org Shrestha / Email : [email protected] Phone : 0115 8492179 / 07752 251 564, email: ghipkiss@ 977-985-1071364 / PO Box 14480 Kathmandu. hotmail.com. Alan Sinclair: phone: 01273 587 660 FINLAND: The Finnish Cryonics Society, / 07719 820715, email: [email protected] (KRYOFIN) is a new organization that will be work- NETHERLANDS: The Dutch Cryon- ing closely with KrioRus. They would like to hear ics Organization (http:// www.cryonisme.nl) is Can help Cryonics Institute Members who from fellow cryonicists. Contact them at: kryoniik- the local standby group and welcomes new en- need help, funeral home, transport at London. ka.fi Their President is Antti Peltonen. thusiasts. Contact Secretary Japie Hoekstra at Contact: F.A. Albin & Sons / Arthur Stanley House +31(0)653213893 or email: [email protected] Phone: 020-7237-3637 FRANCE: SOCIETE CRYONICS de FRANCE Roland Mission- * Can help Cryonics Institute Members who need The Cryonics Society nier would like to hear from cryonicists in Switzer- help, funeral home, transport & hospital explica- INTERNATIONAL: land, Luxembourg and Monte Carlo, CELL: (0033) 6 tion about the cryonics procedure to the Dr and is a global cryonics advocacy organization. Web- 64 90 98 41, FAX: (0033) 477 46 9612 or rolandmis- authority at Amsterdam with branches in other cit- site is www.CryonicsSociety.org. They publish an [email protected] ies. Contact : Koos Van Daalen / Phone (24 Hours) e-newsletter FutureNews. Phone: 1-585-643-1167.

Please note, this list is provided as an information resource only. In- individual needs. We further note that readers should always use their clusion on the list does not constitute an endorsement by Long Life own informed judgment and a reasonable amount of caution in deal- magazine or our affiliated organizations. We urge our readers to use ing with any organization and/or individual listed. this list as a starting point to research groups that may meet their own

13 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org Economies of Scale, First Response, and Funding Reanimation: Their importance to CI and to ACS By Jim Yount, Governor, American Cryonics Society, Inc.

Economies of Scale need to assure the relevant governmental profit by selling hundreds of thousands of agencies that you are meeting the various cars because that start-up cost is so great. and Patient Numbers regulations as well as operating your facil- So, you are now in business with one cry- I could not say it better or more succinctly ity in such a manner the agencies deem as onics patient and your business is running than did CI President Dennis Kowalski: safe. in the red at an alarming rate. If and when “Economies of scale actually play a big That is all a very simplified description of you get your second patient you will have role in cryonics facilities. It takes almost what you will need to go into the cryon- additional money come in and your costs as much to run a facility with 5 patients ics business in the first place; and up until to keep two patients won’t be much more as one with 100.” (Personal email to author now we haven’t mentioned the various than to keep just the one patient. Your and in an email message to CI on-line dis- patient preparation costs such as a cool- cryostat is designed to hold six patients, so cussion group.) down box, perfusion equipment, and a cost to keep patient’s three, four, five and patient-preparation room - then there are six will be just a little more than to keep Okay. So just what are “economies of scale” basic business costs such as accounting Patient One. You may dream and scheme as they apply to a cryonics facility? When expenses, legal expenses, and administra- on how to fill your facility with cryostats you set up many businesses you are going tive expenses. Such expenses, - while ex- and cold customers, but the current mar- to need a place to work, perhaps a manu- pected to be ongoing - will need to be set ket is very small. You may look at the few facturing plant, a garage or a store-front up with part of your going-into-business long-established facilities with patient- -- all depending on what kind of business money. loads over 100 with a bit of envy. you are in. This set-up cost could be called ‘initial cap- The American Cryonics Society, Inc.(ACS) If you are in the frozen people storage ital expenditure.’ Until your first patient now has 19 patients who came to CI business you will need a cryonics facil- comes in, you will need an operating bud- through contract arrangements. There ity. This usually means a warehouse-type get because, at least to start with, you can are two more patients designated as ACS building with lots of room and high ceil- expect to operate at a yearly loss. When patients by the next-of-kin but who came ings (for space to hoist patients into the you do get your first patient that loss will to the CI facility outside provisions of the large thermos-bottle like “Dewars” or cryo- likely accelerate. Why is this? Because you ACS-CI contract. ACS also has some ani- stats). You will to need at least one knowl- will now have the cost of liquid nitrogen, mal patients and a number of DNA sam- edgeable and skilled employee. Obvious- as well as employee cost to periodically ples cozily tucked away in liquid nitrogen ly, you will need cryostats: at least one for top-off the cryostats with liquid nitrogen at the CI facility. your first patient plus a backup in case a and to keep accurate records of the top- There was a time, in the not-so-distant problem develops with your first people- offs. past (no later than the early 1980s) when holding cryostat. All this means that you In a way your cryonics facility start-up is a frozen population of this size would will need to find a company to make them like Ford Motor Company producing its have about equaled every cryogenically for you or figure out a way to manufacture first 2016 model car. It has a huge capital frozen person and animal on earth. That them yourself. outlay just to be able to produce that first was then and this is now. That being said, You will also need to outfit your facility car. If one car was all a factory produced it is not as if the world of 2016 is exactly with various safety devices such as bur- and sold, it would have to price that car at crowded with frozen people. The CI web- glar and fire alarm; security cameras; a several hundreds of millions of dollars just site claims 137 patients, the Alcor website fire-suppressant sprinkler system. You will to break even. Ford is only able to make a boasts of 144. Just the same, economies

14 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org of scale give a substantial competitive tion. Someone else had to look after her tant point: edge to companies with facilities who best interests and see that she was moved “Without a decent standby capability in hold over 100 patients to those who hold to the affordable cold so she would have a place then we might as well be all stor- 20 or so, or those that are just starting out. chance to someday wake up to greet the ing simple [DNA] tissue samples for future Three Bears or to have real-life adventures. Put another way: it makes no sense for cloning. On the other hand, once a person That “someone else” was the American ACS to establish and maintain a cryon- is stabilized and prepared properly they Cryonic Society (ACS). Goldilocks was an ics facility for this relatively small patient can be shipped anywhere in the world for anatomical donation of ACS and it was population when CI has a well-maintained long term storage.” ACS who found her a new, less expensive cryonics facility that is already established. home and paid her way. Standby is where a team of people, who are ready to do initial patient cool-down The ACS folks who moved Goldi around Goldilocks and the and other first-order preparation, is at did so very reluctantly. Each placement the bedside of a patient who desires cry- Three Facilities of Goldi was thought, at the time, to be onic suspension. Of course it is not just the best that could be done. As things At the risk of being just too cute in my standing by but also providing this first- worked out, CI was able to benefit from subject title and analogy, the path to the response service that is so important. Just the economies of scale and thus proved CI facility for a number of ACS patients after death the patient’s body is largely still the best choice for Goldi, but “who would was something like Goldilocks finding a functional. Most organs will still be viable, have thunk it” at the time Goldi was first bed to sleep the decades away in cryonic but will become unusable for transplant, frozen? CI was then not even in existence. slumber. for example, if too much time elapses fol- If we could wake up Goldilocks and ask lowing death. Our proverbial Goldilocks was first sus- her, I think that she would be pleased. It pended and put to bed in liquid nitrogen In the best cryonics cases, the initial re- appears that the CI’s facility now has a at the Trans Time facility in Emeryville Cali- sponse team initiates cooling as they large enough patient population that the fornia - she did so as a member and ana- maintain flow of oxygen to the body tis- economies of scale are favorable. The tomical donation of the Bay Area Cryonics sues. As the body cools it needs less and move to the CI facility was also within Society that would later change its name less oxygen, but the organs of the body Goldi’s limited budget. I think she would to the American Cryonics Society. are still viable, including that most impor- also be pleased with ACS. In spite of Gol- tant organ: the brain. In the early 1990s Goldilocks, finding that di’s travels, she is still frozen where many her first bed was “too expensive” ($5,000 prior would-be cryonics patients are not. For these “best scenario” cases a team such plus per year at that time), moved to the Finally, Goldi would like the fact that she as that assembled by Suspended Anima- CryoSpan facility in Rancho Cucamonga in is both a CI member, with all its benefits tion Inc. is needed. However, there are lots Southern California. (except voting!), and an ACS member with of things that less skilled individuals can its benefits. do to reduce the time that the cryonics Goldilock’s rent, in Southern California, patient is “out in the warm.” was within her budget, about $1,500 per The first two facilities that Golilocks called year, but alas for our heroine, the South- home were not able to attain a patient While long-term cryonics storage is best ern California facility proved “too imper- load large enough for the critical ‘econo- centralized in facilities where the econo- manent,” and closed its doors so that poor mies of scale.’ mies of scale can keep prices low and Goldi moved, yet again, this time to the CI efficiency high, it is rare for someone to facility near Detroit Michigan. Local and Not-So- move in order to be near a cryonics facil- ity when deanimation time is near. People The Goldilocks of Three Bears fame could Local Standby and die where they die. Cryostorage is best easily try out one bed and then another Patient Preparation centralized but death is local. until she found one that was “just right”. The Goldilocks who is a cryopreservation In the same email discussion I quoted ear- Both CI and ACS are fortunate to have the patient did not have such mobility or voli- lier, Dennis Kowalski made another impor- services of Suspended Animation, Inc.

15 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org available to us. However, Suspended Ani- Paying for us better understanding of the possibili- mation’s services do not come cheap and Reanimation ties for reanimation of any patient with can total as much as CI’s entire charge for adequate brain preservation. keeping the patient frozen for perhaps I suspect that almost all of us have won- Patients may also set up trusts that ben- 100 years. dered and speculated about reanimation, efit them alone (the second prong), or, yet there is less discussion, than would One of the problems with any highly more typically, that benefit all patients or seem appropriate, of this important topic skilled (but pricey) first-response service is perspective patients but that have some on the various on-line cryonics discussion that a long standby can prove very expen- “selfish” provisions that will only ben- forums. However, this much-ignored topic sive for the patient and may exceed the efit the patient who has set up the trust. seems to be coming into prominence in funds he has designated for cryonics. In Such trusts are subject to income taxa- just the past six or seven years. some cases in the past ACS has been able tion though but money the trust gives to to supply volunteers or lower-priced help- There are now yearly meetings of a group research by charitable organizations has ers to supplement the services of the more called the Asset Preservation Group for the same tax-deductible benefits as when highly skilled service provider. Of course short or in long-speech The Options for individual taxpayers make charitable do- getting such help to the patient depends Safe, Secure and Legal Asset Preservation nations. upon our being notified promptly that the for Post-Resuscitation Access (try answer- A few years ago one such a trust, set up patient is at or near death. ing the phone at that office!). Both former CI President Ben Best and this author are by an ACS member in suspension at the CI For ACS patients, ACS is “on the hook” members of the forum that explores the facility, paid half of the cost of the fire-sup- for this first response. Under some cir- various ways that individuals can have pressant sprinkler system now installed cumstances we may call on Suspended funds available for emergency use be- in the CI facility. That was a “selfish act” Animation or have local morticians pack tween now and reanimation day and to in that the frozen ACS member benefited the body in ice for shipment to CI. Given have a viable “new life fund” upon reani- through increased safety. However, all of enough warning, we may also dispatch mation. Perhaps you can take it with you! the patients at the CI facility benefited as volunteers or lower-paid responders to This group has mostly concentrated on well. spend the time needed before deanima- use of trusts as a way to bring your assets The future -- by its very definition -- is un- tion occurs, something that could be with you into the future. certain. There may be many circumstanc- weeks or even months. Many years prior to the current interest in es where CI, even with prudent manage- Circumstances may vary greatly as to what asset preservation for cryonics patients, ment, finds there are problems not easily services are appropriate. For example, for ACS developed a program with just that in remedied by its cash reserve. Trusts friend- a patient who has been clinically dead mind. There are so many possible events ly to ACS or ACS own funds could provide for quite some time, paying tens of thou- between now and reanimation day (if re- some of the resources to deal with such sands of dollars for a company like Sus- animation proves possible at all) that it unforeseen problems. seems like a good idea if a frozen fellow pended Animation is not the best use of has a little money tucked away for a rainy It is appropriate that we also note that do- the patient’s funds. On the other hand, if day! nations made directly to CI are preferred the patient is well-funded then any efforts by some as a means to best ensure future that might marginally and questionably The ACS asset management program is reanimation. For those with the means, improve his preparation may be in order. two-pronged. Many of our patients and such donation as well as setting up trusts Cryonics is the prospect of , not prospective patients set up memorial and endowing ACS is in order. It is called the certainty of immortality, and value funds through ACS. The patients can ben- “not putting all of your eggs in one basket.” judgment plays a large part as to just what efit from such funds, but not individually we do to as we attempt to deliver the pa- but rather only as a member of a group. To learn more about ACS and its suspen- tient to medical facilities of the future in as For example, some of the money thus sion program, go to www.americancryon- good a condition as we can. dedicated may lead to research that gives ics.org or www.ca-fl-cryonics.us.

16 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org CI Welcomes New Employee by: York W. Porter Immortalist Society President

The Cryonics Institute recently announced Further, she views her job as one in which an addition to its “in house” staff. Hillary Mc- it is necessary to always insure that the reli- Cauley has been hired to work as a Perfu- ance of members on her as a professional is sion Specialist and Office Administrator at always well based. As she puts it: “I will do the CI facility in Clinton Township, Michigan. everything necessary to uphold the trust Ms. McCauley, who was born and raised in that our members and their families place Roseville, Michigan in the Detroit area, now in us and work towards the best perfusion/ lives in Clinton Township. She received her suspension possible in each situation”. BS degree in Mortuary Science at Wayne State University in 2014 and is a licensed Ms. McCauley recognizes that in some ways, funeral director/mortician in the State of in spite of her professional training and There is also no doubt about Ms. McCauley’s Michigan. She became involved with CI in a experience that she is, in part, learning as drive and interest in her new job. Again, she tangential fashion at first through cases of well as contributing. Every organization is says, “I am here to work hard and I am dedi- CI members dealt with at the Walsh Funeral unique in how it handles things and how it cated to our members and will be just as Home, with which CI has had a long time as- specifically operates and, as part of her du- dedicated to them when they become our sociation. ties as Office Administrator, it will be neces- patients”. Ms McCauley is very forth coming that she sary to get “up to speed” on the mechanics It appears to those of us here at Long Life magazine that CI has definitely “hit a home run” here with the addition of an intelligent and dedicated professional whose skills and knowledge set will mesh very nicely with those needed by present and future CI members and CI patients. Ms. McCauley’s professional background and her interest and drive in tackling her new job assign- ment will also be a big asset to those CI members needing information and assis- tance in making sure that efforts on their and their loved ones behalf will be done in a meticulous and well-informed fashion. Members at a distance who will be dealing, in many cases, with the assistance of a local funeral home, will definitely benefit from the fact that the local professional will be dealing with someone with Ms. McCauley’s views her position at CI in some similar ways of how CI does certain things. On the other background as well as CI employees who that she viewed her prior work in traditional hand, she says that being a new employee have years of additional experience in the funeral homes in the sense of her profes- can be an advantage. As she puts it, “Being specific procedures and needs of CI mem- sional duty to always respect the wishes new to the organization, I have a fresh per- bers. Welcome aboard to the wonderful of the client and their family members. spective and can offer new insight.” world of cryonics, Ms. Hillary McCauley!

17 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org Caveat ‘Reador’ by: York W. Porter, Immortalist Society President Subtitled... “We Just Ain’t Perfect...”

In what I hope is an obvious twist and an attempt at humor Ms. Myers, who was the Press Secretary for President Bill (with some “fractured” Latin spelling added in) on the more Clinton said that every now and then, no matter how hard well known saying of “Caveat Emptor” (“Let the buyer be- she tried not to, something would slip out of her mouth that ware!”), the title of this article is worded to indicate, as any- she immediately wished she could “reel back in”. It’s true of one who has read this (or any other) magazine for a while any Press Secretary for any President, and it’s true of Long can easily conclude, that, well, “We just ain’t perfect....” The Life as well. staff of the magazine tries hard to be as clear as it can in its writing and we try as hard as we can to be as accurate in our So, when reading material in the magazine, rest assured facts as well. Nevertheless, on occasion, we can give an inac- that we are trying hard, as best we can, to provide you good, curate impression of things, however hard we try. solid information. Also rest assured that when we do make a mistake, it’s because our head, and not our heart, is in the In our latest miscombobulation (if there is such a word), wrong place. At the same time, no matter what article you readers of the article on Whole Body Cryopreservation, fea- read (or what magazine you read it in) you still need a little tured in a recent issue, may have gotten the impression that bit of “Caveat Reador” (which I’ve defined as “Let the reader the present default at the Cryonics Institute in terms of pa- be cautious!”), in sorting things out. Cryonics is a big, big tient preparation is different from what it is at present . (See Dennis’ Kowalski’s article later in the issue for the particu- subject, as well as its related organizations, viewpoints, and lars). The article we used, being a reprint, had a “few miles” pursuits, and it’s scientific basis. Even in what one might con- on it and it may have given an accidental misimpression of sider a “hard science”, the number of human chromosomes things. Our apologies if it did. was, until the early 1950’s, believed to be 48. In 1956, the number was correctly placed at 46. Red faces predominated Which brings us to the more important point for readers. at the time all around in the genetics community, I’m sure. We do try hard to be as accurate and clear as we can but, due to time and space limitations, as well as our own hu- When you see what you think may be a factual mistake, let man frailties and limitations of time, we’re going to fall short us know. We’ll try to find out if it is indeed the case (differ- on occasion. We try to provide space in the magazine for a ences of opinion are, of course, another matter and folks myriad number of viewpoints, not all of which can, by their sometimes have had strongly differing viewpoints on ar- very nature, be equally valid. ticles in general in the magazine) and we’ll try to print a

While we try to do some weeding out of what seems to be clarification/correction in the magazine. Just keep in mind, some obviously erroneous stuff, we also do try to give writ- however, that any article that is in this, or any other maga- ers and readers some leeway to present, within limits, their zine, represents information that could be in error in some viewpoint in their own way. This isn’t, of course, an exact sci- way. Wish it weren’t so but, alas, it is just that way. Any help ence and, therefore, every now and then we will engage in you can give through feedback will be greatly appreciated.... what I call the “Dee Dee Myers” effect. Thanks!

18 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org Options for Sa fe, Sec ure a nd Lega l Asset Preserva tion for Post-Resusc ita tion Ac c ess The Seventh Annual Young Cryonic ists Gathering Teens & Twenties 7 2016: Getting to Kno w Yo u - Yo u Getting to Kno w Eac h Other Fri-Sun; April 8-10, ’16 Ontario CA Host: Life Extension Founda tion SCHOLAR SHIPS AVAILABLE iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Greetings to Young Cryonicists, You are receiving this invitation because you are among the future leaders in cryonics.

All attention will be focused on: Enjoy this exciting & fulfilling weekend. our getting to know you and SCHOLARSHIPS: you getting to know each other. Life Extension Foundation, through a gener- PLUS: an update on the latest emergency ous education grant, is offering 40 scholar- response technologies and revival strategies. ships that pay for ALL of the following: Who is Eligible? — U.S. airfare to/from South Florida (or up to $1000 for origin outside the U.S.) Fully signed up young cryonicists from all — Hotel accommodations for Friday & Satur- cryonics organizations in their late teens day nights - plus Thursday & Sunday through age thirty (18-30) a s of April 10, nights for scholarship attendees who room 2016 - may apply to attend. together. Younger Cryonic ists With Pa rent(s): — Meals and beverages on Friday night, all day Saturday, & Sunday breakfast & lunch Thirteen thro ugh seventeen year o ld s — Registration fee - $350 - also covered may attend w hen ac c o mp anied b y their p arent(s) o r guard ian. PDuelea tos ecancellations click on 3t hfullyis wfundedebsi tscholarshipse for a fu havell be- come available. T2 7 2016 begins on April 8-10, 2016. So packet with all details and application Parents/guardians of attendees aged 18-19 you will need to apply for these openings immediately. forms. are also encouraged to accompany their Should it happen that 4 apply we will not deny anyone. We child. All attending parents will be put in Ywillor justk, paddle aans extra.e fill this in - if appropriate. touch with each other should they choose to have their own “get together” during the Forever, “young cryonicists” gathering. Cairn Erfreuliche Idun Progra m Founder/Director: T2 Some individuals are social butterflies. PS!PS Come Come Early. Early. Stay Stay Late. Late. This is not so for everyone. And we want Some attendees to T2 enjoy spending extra everyone to meet everyone. A full packet of information with all details and application time in California - especially since their Therefore, I have designed a diverse range forms may be found on the Immortalist Society website. Go flight is already paid for via their scholarship. of “getting to know you” activities. IF yo u to www.immortalistsociety.org and look for a navigation This is at their own expense for w o uld enjo y p artic ip ating in these button near the top of the home page. additional lodging and food. vario us getting ac q uainted ac tivities, THEN this is fo r yo u. I look forward to getting to know you.

19 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org Evidence-Based Cryonics The Institute for Evidence-Based Cryonics www.evidencebasedcryonics.org www.cryonics-research.org.uk Chana Phaedra, Executive Director +1 503 756 0864 João Pedro de Magalhães, Chair Aschwin de Wolf, President +1 503 4325 515 +44 151 7954517 [email protected] [email protected]

Groundbreaking Scientific Results Show that the Proposition of Human Medical Biostasis has Potential and Needs to Be Brought into Mainstream Scientific and Medical Focus

Recently we have seen scientific evidence that long-term memory the brain. is not modified by the process of whole organism cryopreservation This is a truly groundbreaking result and puts the proposition of through vitrification and revival in simple animal models (C. elegans human medical biostasis as a way to save humans who otherwise nematode), supplementing knowledge that other small animals would die squarely within the realm of what may be possible. with nervous systems can also be healthily revived after storage in storage in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of −196°C (O. jantseanus This technology and these results were recently published by Robert leech). McIntyre and Dr. Gregory Fahy in the journal Cryobiology of the Soci- ety for Cryobiology. Dr Fahy is the inventor of large tissue vitrification Earlier we also knew that in mammalian hippocampal brain slices vi- (Cryobiology 21, 407-426 (1984) and Nature 313, 573 -575 (1985)), ability, ultrastructure, and the electrical responsiveness of the neuro- the Chief Science Officer of organ banking R&D firm, 21st Century biological molecular machinery that elicits long-term potentiation, a Medicine, Inc., and a Fellow of the Society for Cryobiology. Lead sci- mechanism of memory, can be preserved without significant dam- entist Robert McIntyre is a recent MIT graduate and neuroscientist. age following cryopreservation. Published transmission and scan- ning electron microscopic images from a whole brain cryopreserved through vitrification and also indicate structural integrity. First demonstration that long-term

And now, a new cryobiological and neurobiological technique, alde- structural preservation of an intact hyde-stabilized cryopreservation (ASC) provides a strong evidence mammalian brain is achievable and that brains can be preserved well enough at low temperature for wins the Brain Preservation Prize neural connectivity/the connectome to be completely visualized. The connectome is believed to be an important encoding mecha- “This result directly answers what has been the main scientific criticism nism for memory and personal identity (where the mind lives) within against cryonics - that it does not provably preserve the delicate synaptic

Frames from a FIB-SEM stack of rabbit neuropil near the CA1 band of the hippocam- pus. “Overall structural preservation is excellent: processes are clearly defined and organelles are intact. When observing slices of this volume in sequence, it is easy to track the progression of any process through the stack, demonstrating that con- nectivity in this region was not impaired by our preservation method (see full video available in online supplemental materials)”. “KR8H washout solution. Vitrified; CPA removed by diffusion. Experiment date: 2015-04-15.” Source: R.L. McIntyre, G.M. Fahy / Cryobiology 71 (2015).

20 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org Left: 3D Electron Microscopic Evaluation. Bottom: Actual whole rabbit brain vitrified and stored at -135 °C prior to slicing for evaluation. Source: The Brain Preservation Foundation.

circuitry of the brain -and sets the stage for renewed interest, research, “Every neuron and synapse looks beautifully preserved across the entire and debate within the mainstream scientific and medical communities” brain. Simply amazing given that I held in my hand this very same brain when it was a vitrified glassy solid… This is not your father’s cryonics” - Brain Preservation Foundation a press release — Dr. Kenneth Hayworth, BPF President and Co-Judge of Brain Pres- These results come five years after the Brain Preservation Foundation ervation Prize (BPF) launched the Brain Preservation Prize. According to the BPF, narrowly beat a team led by Dr. Shawn Mi- kula at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, which focused on What Does This Breakthrough Mean chemical preservation and plastic embedding without cryopreserva- (and NOT Mean) for Cryonics - Our tion (published last year in Nature Methods). Perspectives In addition to the accomplishment and the full “Aldehyde-Stabilized • Aldehyde Stabilized Cryopreservation (ASC) is a proof-of-con- Cryopreservation” protocol recently being published in the journal cept that brains can be preserved well enough at low tempera- Cryobiology by 21CM it has also been independently verified by the ture for neural connectivity (the connectome) to be completely BPF through extensive electron microscopic examination (link also visualized using current technology. The connectome is be- includes videos). The prize was independently judged by neurosci- lieved to be an important encoding mechanism for memory entists Dr. Sebastian Seung, Professor at Princeton University and Dr. and personal identity (sense of self/where the mind lives) within Kenneth Hayworth, President of the BPF. the brain

“Imagine being able save, and at low temperatures, indefinitely preserve • This is a truly groundbreaking result and puts the proposition of people who can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine so human medical biostasis as a way to save humans who other- that future medicine can both revive them and restore their health – wise would die squarely within the realms of the possible. Medi- these results provide strong support of that being possible” cal biostasis now clearly warrants mainstream scientific discus- sion, evaluation and focus — Dr. JP de Magalhães, ChairThe UK Cryonics and Cryopreservation Research Network • The avoidance of freezing damage in ASC is based on vitrifica- tion, a technology from mainstream organ banking research “In the winning of the Brain Preservation Prize, one of the, if not THE, that was introduced in cryonics in 2001 by Alcor Life Extension most important scientific results in the history of medical biostasis and Foundation cryonics has been accomplished” • The implementation of ASC that is winning the first Brain Pres- — Aschwin de Wolf, President The Institute for Evidence-Based Cry- ervation Prize also utilized a blood-brain barrier opening tech- onics nology first studied for cryonics use by cryobiologist Dr. Yuri

21 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org Pichugin at the Cryonics Institute ten years ago resulting in revival of a biologically natural human, not (see Engines of Creation). • The idea of ASC (even including specific use of the chemical glutaraldehyde) originated with Dr. Eric Drexler's book Engines • Therefore, while the combination of ASC, destructive scan- of Creation in 1986 under the name "fixation and vitrification" ning, and mainstream brain emulation research may pro- where it was specifically suggested for use in cryonics vide a route to cryonics revival, ASC is also compatible with revival in natural biological form by using foreseeable mo- • At the same time it is crucial to note that we primarily see this lecular nanotechnology . 1 accomplishment as an important stepping stone towards bio- logically reversible stasis through cryopreservation/vitrification For more color, references and suggestions on scientists to talk with without the destructive nature of fixation and cross-linkages. contact: Such approaches better meet precautionary/conservative prin- Aschwin de Wolf, President Chana Phaedra, Executive Director ciples about ensuring that everything that is needed in order Institute for Evidence-Based Cryonics +1 503 432 5515 +1503 756 to preserve a human’s entire self has actually been preserved. 0864 [email protected]

Dr. JP de Magalhães, Chair, The UK Cryonics and Cryopreservation • In fact, even though the general idea of ASC has existed Research Network since 1986, the field of cryonics has preferred to avoid use

of chemical fixation because the resulting chemical chang- +44 151 7954517 [email protected] es (the same as embalming) are extreme and difficult to evaluate in the absence of at least residual viability 1 Drexler, K. E., "Molecular Engineering: An Approach to the Develop- ment of General Capabilities for Molecular Manipulation," Proc. Natl. • Fixation is also known to increase freezing damage if cryo- Acad. Sci. protectant penetration is inadequate, further adding to the risk of using fixation under non-ideal conditions that U.S.A. 78(1981):5275–5278. Ralph C. Merkle, “The Technical Feasibil- are common in cryonics ity of Cryonics,” Medical Hypotheses 39(1992):6-16. Robert A. Freitas Jr.,"Comprehensive Nanorobotic Control of Human Morbidity and • If future research shows that ASC can indeed preserve Aging,” in Gregory M. Fahy, Michael D. West, L. Stephen Coles, and enough information to permit computer emulation of ani- Steven B. Harris, eds, The Future of Aging: Pathways to Human Life mal brains, this will have to be reevaluated Extension, Springer, New York, 2010, pp. 685-805.

• The first proposed revival method for ASC was actually reversal of chemical cross-links and repair by molecular nanotechnology

22 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org Robert Ettinger: The Legacy Continues Robert Ettinger and Leonardo da Vinci Introduction by York W. Porter, President of the Immortalist Society

In my work in health care, I work with a lot of pretty smart folks (present the Cryonics Institute as a full-fledged lifetime member, though it took a writer excepted). This is fairly natural since the “weeding out” process while to get my funding in place. In this offering from May of 1994, one involved in nursing schools, med schools, and the schools that turn out genius, Robert Ettinger, makes a succinct case for cryonics with inter- folks who work in the technical aspects of medical work, tend to elimi- weaving words about another genius from human history, Leonardo da nate the “weak specimens” that may be among them. Sort of similar to Vinci himself. what a friend of mine told me one time. He had gone from attending a small town high school to a regional university and said he was told Leonardo Would Have Been A Cryonicist by the professor in his first biology class about the high withdrawal rate by Robert C.W. Ettinger from the class: “It’s a demonstration of the biological principle known as ‘Adapt or perish’!!”. (My friend adapted). The skeptics about cryonics are not only the stupid or the brain- washed. Some now active in cryonics came to it only slowly and re- Sometimes, of course, one can be exposed to folks that are “so smart luctantly. others--friendly, or even active in cryonics--remain skepti- they are dumb”. I have one friend whose IQ has to be “out the roof,” so cal and have not made personal arrangements. to speak. Although he is very smart, intellectually speaking, and is basi- cally a nice guy, he also has fairly poor social skills. Oh well, you can’t One could speculate that some of these people have hidden motives have it all. or emotional resistance--even hidden from themselves. But let us re- frain from such speculation and take their objections at face value. In Robert Ettinger’s case, Bob was, frankly, one of the smartest people How can we make the evidence or arguments more convincing? I ever met. He was, as well, generally speaking, a very kind and well- mannered person and was very nice to me, having me stay in his home numerous times when I drove to the Detroit region for one of the annual A PARTIAL ANALOGY joint cryonics meetings held by the Cryonics Institute and the Immortal- ist Society. Five hundred years ago the conventional wisdom was that humans (and their works) could not fly. Why not? Because (among the larger Putting up with my “ten thousand questions” approach to a figure that I animals) only birds can fly. Only birds have flown, so only birds can initially looked on as an heroic icon during my adolescence before I ever fly. met him and later, with the passage of more than two decades in his Leonardo da Vinci looked at it differently. Since most birds can fly regular presence and via correspondence, looked on as just one of my (and many insects, and a few mammals, and previously a few rep- dear friends, had to be trying on him, especially at first, before I learned tiles), it follows that flight is indeed possible for a heavier-than-air to somewhat moderate my curiosity. being or contraption. We can imitate nature, or improve on nature, Still, he was patient and understanding and was one of two people (the or both; all that is required is a little ingenuity, investment, and pa- other being his second wife, Mae) who were instrumental in me joining tience. (Well, maybe more than a little.)

23 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org The conventional wisdom was not totally vacuous. It is indeed diffi- THE LANGUAGE PROBLEM cult for human artifacts to imitate the flight of birds or insects; we still do not have successful ornithopters, and we still do not fully under- For some people, part of the conceptual difficulty may lie just in stand the anatomy and physiology of birds and insects. Leonardo’s the words “nature” vs. “machine”. But nature uses machines. The tiny concepts were far in advance of engineering capabilities. components of our bodies--including the mechanisms of growth and repair--are machines. And Old Ma has no monopoly on the in- Nevertheless--today our machines fly, and they fly much faster and vention and use of machines. higher than any bird or insect, even going outside the atmosphere to neighboring planets. We haven’t made wings that flap effectively, but we have introduced the propeller (air screw, which Leonardo an- NATURE LOVERS? ticipated) and jet and rocket propulsion, none of which nature ever Once more: Although the achievements of nature, through evolu- heard of (unless you count the squid’s water jet). tion, are marvelous and still not completely understood, they are not necessarily the best nor the last. It took humans to invent the THE PRECEDENT PRINCIPLE & THE wheel; this does not exist in nature--nor does the steam engine, the CAT PRINCIPLE: rocket engine, useful nuclear energy, aluminum building materials, the electronic computer, nor a host of other things. In short, Leonardo relied on the Precedent Principle: Anything that has existed, can exist. (Anything on a human scale; we are not talk- Further, nature is painfully slow. It took hundres of millions of years ing about reversing universal entropy.) And--presumptively--there is to produce mammals. We and our computers can work faster by almost always more than one way to skin a cat. Nature’s product, or many orders of magnitude. a similar one, can probably be made by many different methods, not Further, nature is a blind blunderer. Evolution proceeds by a series of just the one nature happened to blunder onto. (See e.g. our April is- catastrophic accidents, inflicting unspeakable suffering, and finally sue, p. 46, on substitutes for DNA.) destroying all individuals and almost all species. Can we do better? We could hardly do worse. WHAT NATURE HATH WROUGHT

The skeptics object that the cryonics repair job--reversing the dam- REMEMBER LEONARDO age done by present freezing methods, as well as the other previous damage--is hopelessly difficult. (Anatole Dolinoff e.g. has worked up We should never underestimate the possible difficulty of particular numbers of atoms and molecules to move around or repair; see else- undertakings. When I was a boy, in about 1930, a Sunday supple- where in this issue.) ment in the Detroit Times (a Hearst newspaper, now long defunct) ran a big article on the probably inventions of the next fifty years. But let’s get a little perspective. Nature can build a person from a blueprint in nine months. Presumably, repairing one in similar time Nuclear energy and computers and even antibiotics (already in- ought not to be too great a challenge--once our molecular engineer- vented!) were not mentioned, but a big play was given to the Flying ing skills equal and surpass those of nature. Flivver.

To be sure, in some ways a construction job can be easier than a re- The Flying Flivver was to be a family helicopter, easy and safe and pair job. But in biology the line between construction and repair is cheap enough for anyone to buy and fly. It didn’t come in 1980, and very blurred, if it exists at all. Whether your body is growing new skin it still hasn’t come. So we can’t be too credulous. to heal a scrape, or is growing new skin to keep your growing body covered, essentially the same mechanisms are at work. Leonardo da Vinci was also ahead of his time. But it’s as least as bad to be too negative. Effort doesn’t assure success, but lack of effort In each case--to oversimplify a bit--little machines (enzymes, ribo- assures failure. somes, etc.) are following instructions laid down in genes and trans- mitted by messenger RNA to the work site. Generation, regenera- Leonardo understood this--and if he were among us now, he would tion, and repair are all closely related. surely be a cryonicist.

24 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org Joe Kowasky - continues from page 9 Perhaps future technology will say What? Cancer? That is an easy fix! revival of tardigrades. Little creatures, often known as “water bears”, Thank you for keeping the person in stasis until we could fix it. And little guys, cute little guys--they were revived after being frozen for we know it works. 30 years---30 years!. They lived and even reproduced. If nature does this – and it does!-- we think it likely that we will be successful as well. 20 years ago, an article in the New York Times talked about how we need to keep patients a few degrees warmer during surgery than You can’t fly a heavier than air object, that’s crazy!...until you copy the was standard to ensure better results. (They did note that lower tem- birds, which have done it forever. perature was a necessity for heart surgery but they didn’t quite put the pieces together.) Today low temperature surgery is being pio- “You can’t run a mile in under 4 minutes, the human body just can’t!” neered in Pennsylvania and at Harvard Medical School as an amaz- All of the experts knew this! Until Roger Bannister decided in 1954 ing improvement over surgery with the body at normal temperature. that he could... Here is a headline from the British newspaper the Telegraph: Recently I was asked to attend a Cryonicist Conference for those in “Patients To Be Frozen Into State Of Suspended Animation For Surgery!” their teens and 20s –- and here I should thank Bill Faloon for his spon- sorship of this very important conference as well as for the many With the subcaption reading: other efforts he supports in cryonics and life extension---I was asked “Patients are to be placed into a state of suspended animation when to attend a Cryonicist Conference for those in their teens and 20s no they undergo surgery by using a ground breaking technique that freezes longer as a teen but rather as an elder statesman! Not a tremendous- their bodies to the point of death.” ly comfortable feeling, but it reminded me that Robert Ettinger the father of cryonics, found himself in a similar situation. In his twenties, A recent article in Scientific American described experiments with during WWII, he was badly injured and was in the hospital for many nematodes that showed that they could be frozen without loss of memory. We have seen people underwater –- in cold water -- for 40 minutes come out with no brain damage. Last year a man was found in the snow in Pennsylvania. He was non-responsive, he was not breathing and his heart was not beating.

The coroner was called in and estimated that the man had been in -4 degrees (Farenheit) with no vital signs for 12 hours. But to the para- medics’ great surprise a doctor at Lehigh hospital ordered CPR. And, after weeks of recovery, this man woke up and went home, minus fingers and toes, but alive. 12 hours! The headline in the Washington Post read:

“Being frozen ‘to death’ saved this man’s life. It could save others’ too”

What a huge step forward in understanding and acceptance of real- ity. Frequently when there is a choice between reality and what is in Robert Ettinger - the founder of Cryonics our heads, what is in our heads win. months. During that time he reflected on some things that he read It takes a lot for reality to overcome the inertia in our own minds. And and presumed that cryonics would be going full swing by the time here we see that it has, which is very nice. Now this was a very short he was old enough to need it. As he hit his thirties and forties, and period of time, 12 hours, and the man’s body did not get below 65 nothing was happening he had what I think of as an “OH CRAP” mo- degrees Farenheit But. . .the wood frog and the wooly bear caterpil- ment. He realized that he would have to do it himself. lar actually freeze solid over the winter - the heart, lungs and brain And so he did and it began. And we have developed into a strong stop entirely – and then they revive in the spring. And everything organization. But until these ideas are commonplace, we will not starts working again, all by itself. have succeeded. I mentioned earlier that the Cryonics Institute was And most recently the journal Cryobiology reported the successful founded by Robert Ettinger

25 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org Robert Ettinger---anyone who knew this visionary, as I did, also Nobody. Or at least very few. Why? Because we have different inter- knows that he was brilliant, kind, giving . . . and a curmudgeon. He ests. I was an economics major. I find discussions about the elastic- was a pragmatic scientist with no interest in, or patience for, glitz or ity of demand fascinating! How many people even know what that glamour. His message appealed to US, but not to the bigger audi- means? Language can itself feel threatening to people even if the ence – just like most people do not read a scientific journal. He had topic of discussion might interest them. They might want to discuss a saying which I really liked: Often mistaken; never in doubt. I don’t ways to try to restore a sick person to health but would never want know if it relates to this talk but he would and did on several occa- to discuss freezing a corpse. sions change his position if shown to be in error, however, and he I often feel like saying to people who refuse to consider cryonics, you would always move forward. stupid person, why the heck will you take a pill from your doctor that To appeal to a larger audience, we regularly meet with the media has potential side effects of causing sterility or even death without from around the world. There have been articles and news stories a question! But you will not even consider cryonics! (Now, I am not about cryonics and the Cryonics Institute in the media of several telling people to stop taking their meds, by the way – just comment- European, Asian, North American and South American countries as ing on the blind acceptance of some things and the blind rejection well as in Australia, and CI has been featured in several documentary of others.) or other films. But what do we say? Is it something that people will I was going to joke about side effects like your legs falling off and hear? your eyes melting, but my friend reminded me that true side ef- fects are even worse! –But if I talk with people in that way – or worse One thing we neither say nor believe is that we are trying to raise yet, dismiss them without talking with them at all – what would I the dead. One of our members “died” in a shopping center parking achieve? Nothing! lot some 18 years ago. He was revived with a defibrillator they had at the store and lived until 2014. Had this happened to him even Religious groups have learned over the years to talk to people about five years earlier the store would not have had a defibrilator and this things that interest their audience. The Jehovah’s Witnesses offer a story would likely have had a different ending. Although I said that very good example. They found that people often don’t want to dis- he “died” in the parking lot, we know today that he was not really cuss God or religion – “Hey, wanna spend a few hours discussing God dead yet. His body had a catastrophic failure . . . but it was not irre- and what you need to do?” Yeah, maybe not. pairable. We were able to reboot him. This is the message we trying to get across--We are ignorant. We do not know when someone is But people do want to discuss their relationships, fear of death, the world at large, crime, etc. So they offer in depth, well written, easy truly dead. When someone’s heart stops, when disease damages the to read articles on these topics, and show how their religious beliefs body beyond what we can now repair, when illness overtakes our relate to that. Attitudes Make a Difference, Making Peace at Home, medical skills and a person lies silently on the bed the person may be A Visit to Lichtenstein, The Color Changing Ability of the Cuttlefish screaming to us in silence “I’m not dead yet!” I think - and now I speak and How Scientists Are Trying to Use This in Our Clothing. Now you for myself only - that it is an affront to God to pronounce and declare have things that cover your topic, appeal to a variety of interests, and that without question that person has died. We have seen too much which people want to hear. in the past 40 years of organ transplants, heart bypass surgery and defibrilators to have the hubris to say that. And so we do what we And be positive -- Terrorists may use glycerin to make bombs; a can. homemaker to make jelly treats. Gaza example – they could use ma- terials to build bomb shelters instead they use them to build tunnels But what about the rest of the world that doesn’t see it that way? to attack. In 1951 the new head of the Lubavitch Jewish sect known Has anyone here heard of the internet? Why? I think that it is be- as Lubavitcher Rebbi in his first talk – when the knowledge of the cause the world wide web has a lot of stuff on it! How about some Holocaust was just becoming widely known – a time when it would examples of that stuff: have been easy and understandable to talk about the jungle we live in, the terribleness of the world, anger, hatred, negativity. His first Cartoons, college classes, financial information, conspiracy theories, talk was about how we live in a garden my beloved (Song of Songs). news, pornography, family histories, TV shows, numismatic informa- Not an easy thing, but what you need to do if you are a true leader. tion, . . . OK, so who here has in the past 5 years used the internet to He believed that our job is to make the world a better place. And so access all of those things do we

26 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org So, what do we learn: use language that people understand and own mortality at that age? I did … but most people don’t. Here is the are comfortable with. Discuss things with people that they want to video that he put out and which was watched by over 1500 people discuss. Be positive. Talk to everyone. That said it is easier to talk to in the first 2 days. people who have open minds. Who are those people? (Evan’s video may be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/ I heard a comment from someone running the Google science fair. watch?v=rilrZz1eito). She said 14 year olds are too young to know that things cannot be done so they do them. It is important to make presentations in There are other groups and other things being done on this front: I schools. Or invite them to you. High school science classes come in have read about the Organ Preservation Alliance [Sebastian Giwa] to the CI facility with their teachers for a two hour seminar on cry- which has a strong team of scientists, physicians and entrepreneurs onics. (And we even make liquid nitrogen ice cream with them!) with training from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc. The X-prize Founda- But– and this is a key so I will repeat it-- talk with EVERYBODY! Truly tion – which has given prizes that encouraged the development successful people have generally gotten there by getting up every of such things as the first private reusable manned rocket to go to time they got knocked down and continuing to move forward. The space and land safely back on earth – is also considering offering a Mormons, for example, have a huge growth rate in part because they prize for the freezing and revival of organs for transplant purposes talk with everyone. (Stay home on a Saturday morning and you will And, last year, the United States Department of Defense allocated see what I mean.) $60 million toward research into freezing of organs for transplant. . . .and they recently added another $11 million to this venture. I am Attitudes both follow and lead the future. Cryonics has become fairly thrilled. accepted – for you but not for me. So I was thinking to myself a few years ago what can we do that would be more acceptable to the For good and understandable reasons, organ transplants are some- public yet also tangentially benefit cryonics and move it forward? thing that people at large jump to support. Perhaps because, as I mentioned, virtually everyone knows someone who received, needs, Virtually everyone today supports organ transplants. Most know or is an organ donor. When I started the Cryoprize project, my friend someone who has needed, or donated, an organ. But nearly 70% Dena said to me that she has heard me talk about cryonics for 30 of some donated organs go to waste due to the speed required for years and never had much interest. But THIS, -- the Cryoprize mak- transplants. The medical community is working on three methods ing organ transplants safer, less costly and more available --this is to deal with this: growing organs from scratch, keeping organs alive something that is really important! “ This is a stepping stone – per- with nutrients during transport -- this is being tested with some haps a NECESSARY stepping stone, to cryonics. And the public sup- good results specifically with livers today-- and the freezing of or- ports it. Yay! gans. Through a project unaffiliated with the Cryonics Institute I am working to encourage research into freezing of organs. With another Let’s look to the future for a minute. Longer life has already, and likely goal of getting ordinary people involved. will further, affect relationships, what we think about working in a field.– I want to be a blimp pilot and I would also like to be a chef, for (At this point, Joe showed a video about the Immortalist So- example. Physical changes might give me the fingers to be a better ciety Cryoprize..You can see it at : https://www.youtube.com/ guitarist. We might easily change our gender or skin color. More in- watch?v=ipwwr9xlOhI and you may read more about the Cryoprize terrelationships via a brain connected to others leads to an intuitive at www.immortalistsociety.org/organcryopreservationprize for feel of others subcultures and, I hope, greater acceptance – as we more info). have seen already to some extent as our cultures have become more You can tell that that is me because I am wearing the same suit! A interconnected via the media and communication advances few months ago I met with gentleman by the name of Evan Breen. Like odors & smells, dialect and language can have a great effect on Among people in their teens and twenties, this young man is a well us. Far more than race or skin color, I believe, or educational differ- known producer of 6 second humorous videos on the medium Vine. ences, the way people speak can be endearing to those who grew up He has over 1.1 million followers. He is 23 years old. And he did his with similar spoken attributes and grating to those who did not. And own video about the Cryoprize! it is largely subliminal – like a sound which can annoy us even if it is This is not the most polished or scientific presentation … but it is be- too high pitched to be consciously heard. Once we can share each ing watched by 18-25 year olds. How many of us thought about our others’ memories – will this change? I hope so.

27 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org We will be able to use these techniques as today we drive a car or method for doing similar things with nano-machines that we do not use a computer without necessarily understanding its underlying build from scratch but which nature already provides us. And finally, workings. So we will become more able to do things but perhaps less with the help of artificial intelligence--and that keeps popping up knowledgeable individually. And the question remains, if we change because it will be a biggie! -- we may yet learn of methods beyond ourselves so much, will it mean a change in our societal and moral what we can today fathom or guess norms? If I change my body to that of a bumble bee, what then? How Two people were talking – one said the internet is not a superhigh- will I interact with others . . . We don’t know. way as people say it is. The other said, yes it is – but it is night-time, Cryonics, organ repair, organ transplant, organ replacement are a there are no streetlights and the exit signs are unmarked. My excite- few ways that we are working towards repair of physical body struc- ment about AI is how it might help me not just find information, but tures and extending lifespan so that we can achieve more of our po- organize, compare, and test the vast amount of information that is tential, whatever that may be. out there, a lot of it bogus, and potentially do it all in my head, so to speak A physicist, a chemist and an economist were stuck on an island and they had cans of food, and they were starving and they were try- Changes in societal norms are already allowing us to move more ing to figure out how to get into these cans of food. The physicist quickly in this direction. We see nanotechnology in use. We see says, “Well, there’s a rock. We’ll hit the can, the can will split open, cloned animals. We see bloodless surgery. Frozen sperm, eggs, and then we’ll be able to eat the food.”The chemist says, “Wait, I have an embryos. Targeted drug therapy. Organ transplants. Dialysis. And as easier method. We spent hours starting that fire over there...let’s just of very recently, the huge benefit of – and advances in the science of stick the can in the fire, the pressure will build up, the can will ex- – low temperature surgery. People are more apt today to raise ethi- plode, then we can eat the food!” The economist says “Gee, you guys cal questions about the type of manipulation I mentioned above – are making it so tough! Why don’t we just presume we have a can and that is very important – than to raise questions about whether opener!” it will be possible. For example, there is a running dispute in the life extension community as to whether a copy of a person’s memories Well, my undergraduate degree, as I mentioned, is in economics. – if identically copied – perhaps even a physical reproduction of the Economists create models to try to predict the future. And one of brain itself – is the same person or a “twin” with the same memories. the biggest things economists have learned is that as complex as I am in the camp that it is a copy. those models get, we almost always miss something. And in general, not just in economics, projection of the future has been notoriously However, what about a transporter that we see in science fiction that difficult and frequently wrong. Maybe this will change with AI, but converts a person’s material parts to energy for transmission, recon- not with most of my projections. We think it likely that changes we verts it into matter. Is that the same person or a different person? will see in the next 100 years - and to which cryonicists look forward Scientists recently accomplished this feat--albeit with very small par- are the repairing of damage to our bodies, changing of the physical ticles instead of part of a human or with visible structures--so this is structure of our bodies - for example as a means of colonizing a plan- not just a thought problem. et, and modifying our brain and/or interfacing with external sources. And as we physically change ourselves – and physically includes the I do not want to go into any detail because I have no clue as to how brain – will our morals change? History indicates that roles of good this might actually happen. For example, will artificial intelligence and bad and all in between remain, no matter how much our tech- want to interface with us? We don’t know. Elon Musk is very con- nology, our wealth, our habitat, our knowledge, grows or changes. I cerned about the unintended potential dangers of A.I. Ray Kurzweil, was recently in Pompeii and it amazed me that while our technology not so much. But both agree that the changes will be dramatic and has changed, people really haven´t. My wife commented that to this beyond what we can contemplate. Just as today’s internet was not a day people do not treasure life. Killing is easy. Keeping people alive, glint in your grandparents’ eyes, to mix metaphors. much more difficult. I say to the terrorists – find a cure for cancer and they would get whatever they were asking for! It’s hard to do, killing Rather than trying to make projections, then, what I would like to is much more easy. discuss is how we might do these things. Nanotechnology is way up there and already in use. Machines the size of molecules can be used Inside people haven’t changed. But when we can change our bodies to manipulate and reorganize our cells. Gene therapy/manipulation and minds, will that be different? If we decide to change our body to is what we might think of as a more organic, biological or chemical that of a bumble bee will that affect us intrinsically?

28 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org Will there be a wealthy and powerful class that controls and manip- that doesn’t work. We heard it on TV”. And so it’s this big circle, and ulates a lower class? Or will easy access to knowledge create more it’s very difficult to break into. egalitarianism? One of the premises of the Cryonics Institute is that cryonics is coming and we had better develop it before the bad guys But if we can start with something that is acceptable to society– such do! That is also why we keep our prices so low. We want to share this as organ freezing for transplant, which is an extremely good thing with a cross section of society – not just out of altruism but to en- to do on its own right – we get a free pass into the circle. The Fed- sure our own future in what we would consider a healthy (diverse) eral Government happily gives $60 million, now $71 million, to that society. cause. We can save more lives with organ transplants – it is important in its own right. And we can hasten the development of cryonics There are always a few visionaries and eventually their vision of- (and save more lives still), and maybe not go through that nasty tor- ten comes to fruition. Sometimes, though, the visionary is tortured ture or pauper stuff. (It’s a win-win-win!) to death in an inquisition or dies a pauper (like Nicola Tesla). Not so great. There have been changes in societal acceptance but not In the 1970s, it was predicted that we would soon have video phones enough. Cryonics has a tough time because of this. Here is an exam- and flying cars. Almost 50 years later we finally have video phones. ple of the circle that we need to break into to make this happen– this So much of what we predict never comes to pass. But what we DO is something that was discussed by Dr. Aubrey de Grey at a confer- today – it happens. Those of us speaking at the Futurist Conference I ence that I went to. mentioned earlier, were trying to make some predictions to help the business leaders in the room plan for the future. And that is impor-

ic thinks tant. But since most people are followers, those of us who are here, ubl Go P ossible ve mp g rn and others who try to do something – will have MORE IMPACT on s i ra m i nt e it f n u t what does occur than we might expect. Especially if we can indeed n d w y i o a k n n lead others. s r g ’ o t s $ t w

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Government won’t grant funding to certain things. It will only grant accidents so it may continue to be used for emergency situations. If funding to certain types of research. The people that do research, we move to a virtual existence, well, who knows. We may abandon cryobiological societies and other scientists, they want funding. So the need to preserve the body. I have a belief that there is more to us they say “We’re not going to do research into cryonics. That stuff than neurons but that is my own belief and bias. doesn’t work. We don’t want any of that. We want nothing to do with So, what can we do? that. We want...we want your money”. But, what they say to the gov- ernment is “We’re going to do research into things that really mat- Organ freezing for storage (banking) and transport ter...the things that you say matter”. So they get the money. And so they say “Yeah, cryonics won’t work”. And then they say that to the Whole body freezing (cryonics) science pundits that appear on TV...the talking heads that appear on We know these things work in nature. It is up to us to copy that pro- TV. And the talking heads on TV say it to the public. They hear it from cess for human beings. the original research scientists, “Cryonics won’t work...it’s not gonna work....we’re not going to do research on that.” And the talking heads And now as Brent Spiner at a Star Trek convention- enough about tell the public “Oh this stuff doesn’t work...we should stay away from me, ask me some questions! it”. And what does the public do? The public goes to their elected of- ficials and they say, “Hey, you know when you’re giving grants for re- In the next issue of Long Life, Joe gives replies to some excellent au- search, make sure you don’t do that cryonics stuff because we know dience questions and makes a few more final points----Don’t miss it!

29 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org Final Thoughts York W. Porter - Executive Editor Dr. Bliss and Mr. Garfield

“Mr. Garfield’s been shot down, shot down, shot down, Mr. Gar- These were the days when field’s been shot down, whoa” government patronage made the present day widespread Immediately above are the beginning lines of an old song about availability of “pork” seem like the assassination of President James A. Garfield. On July 2, 1881, a an amateur sport. mentally ill and unsuccessful office/government job seeker by the name of Charles Guiteau, opened fire on Garfield at a railroad sta- Guiteau made numerous trips tion in Washington, D.C. In those days, unlike today, Presidents were, to various governmental offi- with the exception of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, not un- cials, seeking a relatively minor post or perhaps even an ambassa- der the layers and layers of protection we have today since this was dorship or some such higher office. He was even able, in the days considered to be too much like the prerogative of kings. President when the White House was literally open to anyone, to actually see Garfield was simply in the presence of his two sons and, unlikely the President himself. (Garfield, according to one report, often times though it may seem, also in the presence of Robert Todd Lincoln, saw 100 “favor seekers” per day). Foiled in all those attempts at a gov- former President Lincoln’s son, who had come to see Mr. Garfield off ernment position, Guiteau became convinced that God had told him as a friend and as a member of Mr. Garfield’s cabinet. Robert Todd to take Garfield’s life. Convinced of the righteousness of his cause, he Lincoln would have, ultimately, the unlikely and sad distinction of even bought an expensive pistol, which he “knew” would be placed having been directly or indirectly at each of three President’s assassi- in a position of honor in a museum and, on the day of the shooting, nations as, 20 years later, he was also in Buffalo, NY (although not an Guiteau had his shoes shined to a high gloss due to the “glory” he eyewitness) when President James McKinley was also shot. McKinley knew would come. died eight days later. On the day of the shooting, one bullet passed through Garfield’s Guiteau had a long and sordid history. His family had him commit- shoulder. Another passed through his spinal column but missed the ted to a mental institution in 1875 but he escaped. Previous to his spinal cord and lodged near his pancreas. Collapsing to the floor, assassination attempt on Garfield, he had tried various occupations Garfield was ultimately carried back to the White House. Initially without success, including the practice of law, bill collecting, and believed to be mortally wounded, Garfield survived for many, many theology. He had even spent time in what was then considered an at- days. It was at the beginning, however, that the die might have been tempt at a Utopian community in Oneida, New York. Following these cast for the worse. Robert Lincoln, with all the good intentions in the endeavors, he had turned to politics and wrote a speech in favor of world, sent for Dr. D. Willard Bliss. The combination of Dr. Bliss’ strong- Ulysses S. Grant for an additional term as President since, in those willed approach, coupled with medical ignorance of the time, may days, the “two-term limit” for Presidents was tradition but not law. not have caused, but certainly helped lead, to Garfield’s ultimate de- mise. As a radiologist that this author talked with one time stated, When Grant lost the Republican nomination to Garfield, Guiteau “It’s sad to say but a patient will believe just about anything a doctor altered his pre-written speech somewhat and changed it to favor tells him just because the doctor is a doctor, no matter how wrong Garfield. He never gave the speech in public but had several copies the doctor may be.” printed up and distributed. Even though Guiteau’s speech left much to be desired, nevertheless he felt, as sometimes happens with a ba- And Dr. Bliss, as well as his colleagues, was definitely wrong in some sically deranged person, that he deserved much of the credit for Gar- ways. The wounds suffered by President Garfield were probed re- field’s ultimate success in what was a narrow election victory. Guite- peatedly under unsanitary conditions by unclean fingers and un- au thought he should be rewarded for his “efforts” by the awarding to sterilized instruments since the germ theory had not yet taken hold him by the Garfield Administration some sort of a government post. universally. Though Lister had introduced the concept in the early

30 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org 1860’s, even the most indigent patient in the smallest hospital in the fortunately, back up their argument with such statements as “Where USA today would receive far superior medical treatment, infection did you get your mechanical engineering, law, medical, etc., etc. wise, than did one of the most prominent men on the face of the degree?” rather than go through the steps of reasoning, including Earth, back in the late 1800’s. In that day, many medical men clung probabilistic statements, that leads them to their conclusion. In Bliss’ to the theory of “miasma”, which is the thought that disease could be case, even with other doctors, it could have led to the “How many caused by “bad air”. The word “malaria” stems from this thinking, that bullet wounds have you seen?” rather than try to defend the particu- bad air (“mal-aria”) was the root of the problem. Things had a long lars of an opinion and reasonably listen to contravening opinions. In way to go in the scientific underpinnings of medical treatment. a modern day example of this fallacy, many an airline crew has, sad- Another problem was one of long standing in many medical profes- ly, flown a perfectly good airplane right into the ground (so-called sionals. The nature of the work is such that errors are costly in human “controlled flight into terrain”) and any comment questioning their suffering and lives and many medical professionals are, of necessity, actions beforehand by any folks without a pilots license could have very perfectionistic and hard driving in their work. Traditions tend easily been met by “How many flight hours do you have on your li- to “die hard” in the field and innovative thought is, to some degree cense?” just before the stark “Sound of impact” line which ends many understandably, looked at with great skepticism since, if the inno- a flight data recorder transcript would have appeared. vative thought is wrong, as it can often be, great havoc can In Bliss’ case, his vast expe- be wrought that can’t be eas- rience with bullet wounds ily, if ever, fixed. Good ideas which left him, nevertheless, have to fight their way to the far from infallible, coupled surface and there is the com- with his apparent professional pounding factor that just be- and personal pride did lead cause a thought is innovative, him to be unable to cede, or that doesn’t make it correct. even share, authority with oth- er doctors. Further, he had al- And, there is the problem of ready publicly stated that the folks who just think they are bullet that remained in Presi- absolutely right and just can’t James Garfield (L) and Dr. D Willard Bliss (R) - Wikimedia Commons dent’s Garfield’s body was on be wrong, no matter what. These types of folks are in all walks of life and not just in medicine. In the right side, Again, pride and an inability to apparently admit even many areas, they do minimal harm, such as the car mechanic who is the possibility of error wound up with him forbidding the noted in- only hurting his own business if he keeps following an ancient, but ventor, Alexander Graham Bell, from using an early form of a metal outdated, path of repair in which he has supreme, but mistaken con- detector on the opposite side. Bliss just couldn’t be wrong. Alas, the fidence. In some areas, such as flying a plane or working on seriously autopsy conclusively proved he was. (Didn’t stop him from submit- ill and/or injured human beings, however, such “over-confidence” ting a medical bill that, in modern day money, was over six hundred can easily result in death. It appears Dr. D. Willard Bliss may have thousand dollars). been one of those folks in a profession where confidence but not certainty is what’s needed instead. Those of us in cryonics have deep respect for expert opinion. We use it in our arguments in favor of this world-changing concept and we One such form of “I can’t be wrong” may have come from the fact try hard, albeit imperfectly I’m sure, to be as accurate as we can in its that Bliss had served as a surgeon in the Civil War. The bullet wounds use. We don’t ask you to “check your reasoning power at the door” in the war were numerous and, in many cases, quite horrendous. when exploring this life-saving concept. We do ask you to just give Many physicians, even in modern day practice, are not exposed to us a fair hearing in which you carefully weigh the argument, pro and the number and kind of wounds that Dr. Bliss could have seen dur- con, about this remarkable idea. Like many of us before you (includ- ing his service in the Union army. This frequently leads to a type of ing, frankly, physicians and scientists of various backgrounds), we the “appeal to authority” fallacy in which it isn’t recognized that any think, and we hope and believe that, unlike Dr. Bliss, if you’ll keep an authoritative opinion is only composed of statements that are prob- open and “amenable to reason” and prudently skeptical mind, you’ll ably true instead of no doubt and absolutely true. find our position to be, at bottom, quite rational and solidly based. Also, rather than back up their conclusion with the general reason- Once you’ve reached that conclusion, we want you to join us and ing why they think their opinion is correct, such folks tend to, un- want you to do so as soon as you can! You’ll be glad you did!

31 • Long Life Magazine - a publication of the Immortalist Society • www.immortalistsociety.org Get the world’s premier publication on prolonging youth & longevity for one year absolutely FREE! 605.82 1215

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